Depending upon their construction, known trellises can be used to support plant growth or to hold potted plants. Multi-legged trellises are known in the art. Exemplary one are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,895,712, U.S. Pat. No. 6,588,143, U.S. Pat. No. 6,453,606, U.S. Pat. No. 6,349,502, U.S. Pat. No. 6,088,956, U.S. Pat. No. 5,595,019, U.S. Pat. No. 5,179,799, U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,231, U.S. Pat. No. 4,019,280, U.S. Pat. No. 3,299,569, U.S. Pat. No. 3,264,783, U.S. Pat. No. 3,113,400, U.S. Pat. No. 3,088,245, U.S. Pat. No. 2,009,867, U.S. Pat. No. 1,617,494, U.S. Pat. No. 1,361,464, U.S. Pat. No. 897,006, U.S. Pat. No. 760,879, U.S. Pat. No. 601,691, U.S. Pat. No. 212,604, U.S. Pat. No. D459,492, U.S. Pat. No. D406,021 and others.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,412,905 discloses a trellis having three support rings, wherein the larger ring is at top, and the rings below decrease in size in order. U.S. Pat. No. D413,233 discloses a trellis system very similar to that of the '905 patent except that the order of ring sizes is reversed from top to bottom.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,174,060 discloses a trellis with two rings and three support legs. The larger ring is a located at the top and the smaller ring closer to the bottom. A helical coil connects the two rings.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,763,096 discloses a sectional three-legged trellis that includes three equally-sized support rings. Each ring is made up of plural apertures. The sections of the trellis are stackable by way of seats located in several of the apertures of each of the rings.
To prevent having to buy and install different support structures for plants in containers and plants in the ground, it would be advantageous to use the same structure for both a cage for hanging plant limbs, vines, branches, and the like, and a support for a plant container. Most known structures, however, cannot perform both functions.
The materials used to make many of the known trellises are also unstable, flimsy, and/or too flexible wire frames. For example, the wire structures frequently deform or the welds holding the wire structure together break during the application of downward force to fix the structure to the ground, during use, or and when the wire structure is pulled from the ground. Thus, many of the known trellises are of limited use.
As such, it may be appreciated that there continues to be a need for a trellis adapted to provide a plant container support designed to effectively accommodate various sized containers and provides sturdy reliable support. Additionally, there is a need to provide a sufficiently rigid trellis that can withstand the rugged handling associated with repeated insertion and removal from the ground.
Each of the known trellises has a limited scope of use due to its construction. None of the known trellis systems employ a tool that cooperates with the trellis to provide additional utility to the trellis.